"This," Aymer said, looking round cautiously, and then getting up to shut the door. "Girls, you must know it sooner or later; and Guy says I had better tell you, for that secrets are bad among those who mean to sink or swim together. Only for that I wouldn't make you sadder than you are already. Do you know that my father only holds a lease of this place for his own life and hers—my mother's?"
"No; but I don't understand," said Helen.
"It means this: that we are working for bare bread, not laying by a penny; and that if my father died to-morrow, we should all be turned out on the roadside."
"Oh, Aymer, that can't be."
"It is, indeed."
"But I thought the place, such as it is, belonged to us?" Helen persisted.
"Not an acre of it."
"At all events we could take it on: get another lease of it."
"I fear not, Nelly. The person my father took it from is dead, and the new owner is rich, and could improve the land, and make it worth double what we pay. He would never let it to us, without a penny of capital to do it justice. I cannot help it, so there's no use in fretting; but I do feel ashamed sometimes at the way I'm obliged to rack the land, taking out all I can get, and putting nothing, or next to nothing, in. There's no help for it. I don't see what we can do."
"But I do," said Guy, his dark face flushing with animation. "We must emigrate! I know you think this nonsense, Aymer, but indeed it is not. Just listen to me. You know, Liz, I go every day to Kilsteen, to help Billy Cox, the postmaster."